Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cutting apparatus having a blade cover.
Description of the Related Art
In a cutting apparatus having a cutting blade for cutting a workpiece, a cutting fluid is supplied to the cutting blade during cutting, so as to remove process heat (cutting heat) generated due to cutting and also remove cut dust (saw dust or sludge) generated in cutting from the upper surface of the workpiece. In the case that the workpiece is a wafer on which imaging devices such as CMOSs and CCDs are formed or a substrate on which optical devices such as filters and optical pickup devices are formed, there is a possibility that the adhesion of cut dust to the devices may cause poor quality of the devices. Accordingly, great importance is placed on the prevention of the adhesion of cut dust to the devices.
Once cut dust sticks to the upper surface of the workpiece and then dries, it is very difficult to remove the cut dust from the upper surface of the workpiece in a subsequent cleaning step. To cope with this problem, there has been proposed in Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2006-231474 a cutting apparatus having a mechanism for supplying a cleaning water to the upper surface of a workpiece during cutting to thereby prevent the adhesion of cut dust. This cutting apparatus essentially includes a chuck table for holding a workpiece, cutting means for cutting the workpiece held on the chuck table, cutting water supplying means for supplying a cutting water to a cutting blade, and cleaning water supplying means for supplying a cleaning water to the upper surface of the workpiece in cutting the workpiece held on the chuck table, wherein the cleaning water is sprayed in the same direction as the direction of scattering of the cutting water due to the rotation of the cutting blade, thereby supplying the cleaning water to the upper surface of the workpiece.